Technical explanation

We broke England and Wales up into "Middle Layer Super Output Areas" (MSOAs), areas with a population between 5,000 and 15,000. Each was ranked according to five variables that we considered good markers of what makes a location a nice place to live.

Data this detailed is rarely published, and is only available for England and Wales, limiting the range of variables that we could use and areas we could cover.

This also required us to use figures from different time periods.

MSOAs have changed slightly over timea, requiring small adjustments to around 2.5pc of the areas used.

Economic activity: The percentage of people in an area aged 16 to 74 who were economically active - working or looking for work a week before the 2011 census.

Health: The percentage of people in area who reported that their general health was “very good” at the time of the 2011 census.

Home ownership: The percentage of people in area who owned their own home outright or with a mortgage or loan at the time of the 2011 census.

Income: Model-based estimates of average weekly household net income in an area for the period April 2007 to March 2008.

Crime: The ratio of the number of instance of crime and anti-social behaviour to the number of people in an area as processed by UKCrimeStats from official police statistics for the period May 2013 to June 2014.